Surviving in Academia

In 1969-71 many believed that radical economics would be a major driver for reform of the discipline of economics and through this change, it would encourage progressive social change in North America. This belief suffered a definitive blow in the years that followed. A string of dismissals and nontenure decisions targeted the leaders of the movement and the most eminent centers of radical scholarship. Again putting trust on their discipline, radicals called on their established peers at the American Economic Association to investigate the attacks on their academic freedom. The conclusions of the Committee on Political Discrimination were, with one exception, that of Peter Bohmer, to declare allegations of discriminatory actions against radicals as inconclusive. The outcome of these setbacks was not a purge of academic radicals from American Universities, overtime they were able to relocate, away from their former Ivy League homes to less prestigious institutions but ones that afforded them the gift of recognition and autonomy, places like UMass-Amherst, American University, and the New School for Social Research.